Creative Is the New Targeting: Scaling eCommerce Paid Media Performance in 2026 | NOVOS X Athos Commerce

Google Ads has changed.

​People are no longer searching in the same way. Queries are becoming more conversational and less keyword-driven. As AI MAX reshapes Search and Shopping campaigns, strong SEO foundations, structured product data and relevant onsite content are becoming critical to capturing demand more effectively through Paid Search.

​Join our Paid Media Director, Benoit Legendre, and John Brolly, Head of Partnerships - EMEA at Athos Commerce, as they explore what it now takes to scale eCommerce performance in 2026.

​You’ll learn:

​✅ How Meta’s evolving algorithm is changing the way eCommerce brands scale

​✅ Why creative is no longer a volume challenge, but a systems challenge

​✅ A practical framework to build a creative system that drives weekly learnings and faster iteration than your competitors

​✅ How to capture higher-intent demand more efficiently with AI MAX by strengthening SEO foundations, PDPs, product data and on-site content as one connected growth system

​Who this is for:

​eCommerce leaders, Heads of Growth, Performance Marketers and paid social teams looking to maximise Meta performance in 2026.

Want to talk to the NOVOS team? Reach out at hello@thisisnovos.com.

Transcript

1. THRIVE BY NOVOS The eCommerce Marketing Series
2. Creative is the new Targeting: Scaling eCommerce Paid Media Performance in 2026 15 JULY 2026
3. Benoit LEGENDRE PAID MEDIA DIRECTOR John BROLLY HEAD OF PARTNERSHIPS
4. Contents 01 Why it changed Creative drives performance 02 Generate Build a creative system that scales 03 Fix the leaks Spend where it’s incremental 04 Capture Get found in AI search 05 One System Creative and feed aligned
5. The brands winning in 2026 are spending more are running better systems
6. Generate Demand.
7. Creative is the new targeting. • Rising CPA, limited scale • Over-reliance on the bottom funnel • Creative fatigue, ads burn out fast What you are seeing • Intent over audience • Probabilistic, AI-decided delivery • Creative is the targeting signal • Strategic volume & diversity required What changed: Andromeda
8. Creative is the largest performance driver. 80% of digital ad success driven by creative quality Nielsen 49% of sales lift comes from creative, the single largest driver NCSolutions +22% ROAS for advertisers using AI creative features Meta, 2024
9. The Problem: Most brands cannot scale creative effectively Creative is now a system problem, not a production problem. • Angles, new value props & positioning • Hook that stop the scroll • Formats: vertical, static, UGC, carousel • All refreshed on a cadence that beats fatigue WHAT IT TAKES TO KEEP UP • Internal teams ship a handful of assets per quarter • Agencies produce campaigns, not systems • No feedback loop briefing the next batch THE REALITY
10. Every Platform is building a creative studio. WHAT THEY ARE BUILDING • Meta.ai • Google Asset Studio • TikTok AI creative tools • Amazon creative studio CONSTRAINTS • Their model only • No learning memory • No brand or persona context • No system These tools help you produce quicker. What is still missing is the system, the feedback loop briefing your next batch. That gap is the advantage you build.
11. The creative system. 01 PLAN Volume + angles, mapped from brand DNA and personas > 02 PRODUCE High-volume, persona-led diversity at scale > 03 TEST Always on, ~10% of spend into validation > 04 LEARN Kill, iterate, scale, signals feed the next cycle Speed of iteration = competitive advantage.
12. Without a plan you cannot learn & without learning, the loop breaks. HOW MUCH CREATIVE DO YOU NEED? • Volume scales with how much you spend on creative-led channels (Meta, Tiktok, YouTube). More spends needs more distinct creative. The best defence against fatigue is constant testing. BUDGET BY OBJECTIVE • Allocate by funnel stage, not everything is conversion. BUSINESS PRIORITIES • Categories to push, stock, promos, launches, seasonality BRAND DNA + Personas • The persona you define runs through your PDPs, your feed and ultimately AI campaigns Plan: Your Creative.
13. Step 1 - Go and look You are not copying , you are understanding what the market responds to, then building something more relevant • META AD LIBRARY • TIKTOK CREATIVE CENTER • GOOGLE ADS TRANSPARENCY Step 2 - From swipe file to brief LEVEL 1 - STARTER • Manual: quality depends on who has time LEVEL 2 - ADVANCED • Use tools ($$) such as gethookd.ai or kalodata.com LEVEL 3 - PRO • Custom connected context: brand DNA, Personas, Competitors intel and the learning log together. ◦ API: apify.com Plan: From intelligence to brief.
14. Produce: AI assets & Creator content. • Volume and diversity at speed • Change hook or setting without a new shoot • Low cost per asset Tools: makeugc, arcads, riverflow, Higgsfield, Figma / Canva AI Production • Trust AI cannot replicate • Community reach beyond your audience • Whitelisting scales trust with budget Source: TRIBE, ShopMy, The Cirqle, Upfluence Creator & Influencer AI fills the volume gap. Creators fill the trust gap. Partnership ads extend the reach. Partnership ads run through the creator’s own handle to reach their audience. Brief with the persona, not the product, and make whitelisting standard. Push for video + static, and creators that genuinely differ.
15. Produce: Creative diversity. Not the same ads x20. • Same creative, text swapped • Minor colour or caption changes • The same video re-cut What diversity is NOT • Different formats: video, static, carousel • Different hooks mechanisms • Different concepts and creators What diversity IS
16. Produce: Creative diversity
17. Produce: What makes a genuinely new creative? LOWER REACH HIGHER REACH HIGHER IMPACT LOWER IMPACT High impact, less reach 1. Hook the exception 2. Proof (reviews, claims) Priority swings - start here 1. Format (video, static, carousel) 2. Product category (ex: Dog Food vs. Supplements) 3. Offer (trial vs bundle) 4. Vehicle (UGC, Founder, Testimonial, Unboxing) Refinements 1. Headline 2. Body Copy 3. CTA 4. Visual Layout Audience expanders 1. Different persona (Fussy dog vs. Sensitive Stomach) 2. Product variant (new flavour) 3. Different Creator / Voice / Visual Style 4. Length (6s vs 30s) Reach = how much Andromeda treats it as a genuinely new ad
18. FIELD PURPOSE EXAMPLE Collection Campaign or season SUM26 Product Category Wet Food / Dry Food / Treats WetFood Concept Strategical idea/angle being tested SocialProof Hook Opening Mechanism BeforeAfter Vehicle Creative Execution UGC Format Video / Static / Carousel Video Creator Creator or AI Emma Version Iteration V03 Test: The ad naming convention. [Collection]_[ProductCategory]_[Concept]_[Hook]_[Vehicle]_[Format]_[Creator]_[Vxx] e.g. SUM26_WetFood_SocialProof_BeforeAfter_UGC_Video_Emma_V03
19. Learn: The feedback rules. Define your rules before you launch. This is where the naming convention pays off: slice performance by concept, hook, format and creator. Learning no decision yet Spend < £150 or < 3 conversions. Leave it running. Average CPA = £50 Winner scale Spend > 1x target CPA, CPA < target, CTR & ROAS above median, trend stable or improving. Watch diagnose CTR & CPA both rising, or both falling, or spend too low for confidence. Hold and investigate. Kill pause with confidence Spend > 2x target CPA AND CPA > 150% AND CTR below median AND trend worsening over 3 days. Tooling: Motionapp, or a custom Claude Code tracker. The loop must close: every test makes the next brief smarter.
20. The benefits of a creative system. Illustrative: £50k/month on Meta, blended CPA £30, AOV £65. Without a creative system • Effective CPA drifts to £45 • ~1,110 conversions • ~£72,000 revenue • Breaks beyond £50k With a creative system • Always-on testing (10% = £5,000) • CPA holds at £30 • ~1,500 conversions • ~£97,500 revenue CPA -33% + Conversions +35% = Revenue +£25,500 / mo
21. Build your own creative feedback loop, block by block. TODAY: FRAGMENTS Every tool owns a piece of the loop: • Analytics read Meta • Tools make the assets • Monitors scan the market None of them close the loop. BUILD IT YOUR WAY Start anywhere, add blocks over time: 1. Manual 2. Semi-automated 3. Automated It compounds with every cycle. No platform sells this yet. The brands that build it win.
22. Creative is just an asset the growth engine But generating demand is only half the job. Now let's talk about where most brands are quietly wasting budget when capturing that demand.
23. Capture Demand.
24. You are probably paying Google to intercept your own customers. The metric: Search Impression share Aim for 70-80%. Above 80% is strong diminishing returns, and you can never reach 100%. Much of it is not incremental MMM and incrementality studies: people already searching for you would convert anyway. What brand search is for Communicating offers and protecting against competitors. At 70-80% you already do that. It depends on context Competitors or resellers bidding on your brand? If not, reduce and let them find you organically. Efficient brand management is not about spending less. It is about spending where the return is genuinely incremental.
25. Most of the waste is structural. Fix the segmentation • Exclude Brand from PMax • Standard Shopping for brand traffic • Dedicated Search Brand campaign Manage to impression share • Do not let the brand campaign be limited by budget, if no additional budget: tighten bids. • Hold Search IS in the 70-80% band. 80-85% max during key sale period like black friday. Reinvest the headroom • Non-brand + AI Max • Meta paid social, YouTube • Prospecting Campaigns: Consideration & Awareness • SEO / GEO / Product Feed • Creative Engine The creative system generates demand. The freed brand budget funds the channels that capture it.
26. Google ads has changed: what AI Max actually is. Why it exists Conversational queries outpace your keyword list. Google also monetises every possible auction. The mental model A setting inside existing Search campaigns, not a new campaign type. It expands your base keywords using PDP context. Why it breaks with poor data It cannot extract product context to translate into the ad. Same for PMax and Shopping: a weak feed means fewer conversational auctions. +28% conversions on average at the same CPA or ROAS when activated up from +14% in beta last year AI Max is your non-brand capture engine. It only performs as well as the product data you give it.
27. How AI Max gets built.
28. Product Feed & PDP: convergence point between Paid Media & SEO.
29. Why product data is now a growth lever. Creative generates demand > Product data captures it Product data now decides visibility, targeting and performance across Shopping Ads, AI-powered search and Performance Max. “The creative gets them to look. Your product data decides whether they ever see you, and whether they buy.”
30. What poor product data costs you. Common issues • Generic titles • Missing attributes • Thin descriptions • No persona awareness • NEW: No conversational attributes What it costs, in plain terms • Lost impressions • Wasted spend • Weaker ROAS • Products missing from new conversational auctions
31. Get your feed ready for AI visibility and new formats. New AI ad formats Google is bringing next-gen AI ads to Search, with new Shopping ads coming. Feed quality decides eligibility. blog.google/google-marketing-live-search-ads New + conversational attributes New feed attributes for Google Ads, and conversational attributes for Shopping feeds, so products enter AI-driven auctions. support.google.com/merchants/answer/17085370 Agentic discovery A structured feed lets you connect your store (e.g. Shopify) to ChatGPT and Perplexity, so products surface in AI assistants. The same enriched product data pays off three times: Google auctions today, the new AI ad formats next, and AI assistant discovery beyond.
32. Get your feed ready for new AI Ad formats. Conversational Discovery Ads AI-powered Shopping Ads
33. Get your feed ready with conversational Attributes. May 2026 ATTRIBUTE HOW TO USE EXAMPLE Question and answer [question_and_answer] Add questions and answers or FAQs about a product under [question_and_answer] "Does it have a headphone jack?":"This version doesn’t have a headphone jack.", "Does it support Bluetooth?":"It has full Bluetooth 6.0 support." Document link [document_link] Add related document (PDF) under [document_link] https://example.com/manual.pdf To submit more than one PDF file, separate each URL with a comma ( , ): https://example.com/manual.pdf, https://example.com/assembly_instructions.pdf Related product [related_product] Add related products under [related_product] Group attribute with 3 sub-attributes: Relationship type [relationship_type] Identifier type [identifier_type] Identifier [identifier] Example required_part:id:AZ7B, / accessory:gtin:811571013579 Item group title [item_group_title] Add [item_group_title] attribute in combination with the item group ID [item_group_id] attribute to assign a title to a product with multiple variants Organic Cotton Men's T-Shirt Variant option [variant_option] Use the variant option [variant_option] attribute in combination with the item group title [item_group_title] and item group ID [item_group_id] attributes to specify all variant-identifying properties of a product when it's available in different variants. Group attribute with 2 sub-attributes: name [name] & value [value] Example: Shoe width:narrow,size:8 Popularity rank [popularity_rank] The popularity rank [popularity_rank] attribute indicates the popularity of your product, ranked as a percentage of total inventory. The higher the value the better performing your product is compared to other products you're selling. 95.5 Product highlight [product_highlight] Use the product highlight [product_highlight] attribute to focus on selling benefits, while using product detail [product_detail] to focus on providing technical, verifiable data. Don’t duplicate data from other attributes. “Supports thousands of apps ”, “1080x2424 pixel display resolution ”, “Supports both 2.4 Ghz, 5 Ghz, and 6 Ghz Wi-Fi networks ”
34. The audit framework and agent demo. What it does • Identifies product feed gaps and opportunities • Prioritises the fixes that move performance Integrates with • PIMs and PLMs • Ecommerce platforms (Shopify / Agnostic) • Enrichment tools • ERP/WMS/OMS
35. Case Study. + 168% Impressions + 155% Clicks + 322% Revenue Errors within their feeds ranging from incomplete product attributes to mismatches and disapprovals were difficult to identify and slow to resolve. With intuitive automations and a flexible Label Manager, the team was able to eliminate repetitive tasks, organize products more efficiently, and create dynamic product groups. To further maximise visibility, Clarins used Intelligent Reach’s built-in A/B testing capabilities. The team ran continuous experiments at scale, comparing performance of different feed variations to see what changes would drive the most impressions and conversions.
36. Your product data action plan. 01 Audit Find the gaps and opportunities in your feed > 02 Enrich Add the attributes and persona-aligned detail > 03 Optimise Refine continuously against performance Handing back: the feed and the creative have to speak the same language for any of this to compound.
37. Close the persona gap. PERSONA ConsciousDogParents Meta hook: “Natural dog food without the junk you can’t pronounce” THE GAP Feed: “Wet dog food, 395g” Compliance-level. It tells the agent what the product is, with no intent to match. The funnel breaks where it should close. ALIGNED, INTENT-LEVEL Feed: “Natural wet food for dogs with sensitive stomachs, no fillers, real meat first” It tells the agent what it is for, and matches the Meta hook. Creative and feed speak one persona. Persona must match on the PDP too, or AI agents trust neither the page nor the feed. Athos covers the exact feed fields next. One persona across Meta creative, PDP and feed. Match all three and conversion efficiency compounds.
38. Generic feed vs AI-ready feed. Same product, same persona (ConsciousDogParents). Only the feed attributes change. GENERIC OR EMPTY ENRICHED FOR AI DISCOVERY title Wet Dog Food 395g title Natural Wet Dog Food for Sensitive Stomachs, Grain-Free, Real Meat First description 395g tray. Chicken flavour. description Gently cooked natural food for dogs with sensitive stomachs. Single protein, no fillers. product_highlight (empty) product_highlight Gentle on sensitive tummies; No fillers; Single-source real meat; Vet-recommended question_and_answer (empty) question_and_answer Suitable for sensitive stomachs? Yes, grain-free, single protein. Skipped by AI Selected and recommended
39. The full picture: one persona, end to end. ONE PERSONA ConsciousDogParents runs through every stage below GENERATE 01 Meta creative Persona-led creative generates demand > CAPTURE 02 PDP + feed Persona-aligned, capture-ready > CAPTURE 03 AI Max + agents Select and recommend you > LOOP 04 Learn Feed the next persona brief Learnings feed the next persona-led brief Two systems. One persona. Every layer of the funnel tells the same story.
40. Q&A.
41. Appendix.
42. AI Max won’t scale without landing pages.
43. Paid Media is the accelerator of our Persona-First SEO strategy. You are investing in the first step for full service growth. The Novos Growth Model: • Reduce over-reliance on defensive Paid Search as organic capture strengthens • Reallocate budget into incremental upper-funnel activity • Improve blended CAC and total DTC revenue, not just channel ROAS • Our Creative Engine fuels both organic and paid with persona-aligned content at scale. NOVOS eCommerce Growth model.